John's helper from beyond the grave
by LunarLacrimosa
Summary: John Watson had been through a lot in his life, and when he came to the inevitable conclusion that he was being watched over by an angel it didn't even faze him. He knows he can't tell anyone, because Sherlock never believed in God anyway. Mental!John, helping!Sebastian only once . Can be taken as John/Sher in a roundabout way.


**AN: **Basically John gets to the point where he can no longer take Sherlock being dead and starts making it so he thinks that he's getting help from 'beyond the grave', not remembering each time he does it. All of this happens while everyone is convinced he's fine, up until he lands himself in the hospital and poor Lestrade finds out the truth.

* * *

John had been through a lot in his life, and he wasn't even counting his time spent overseas in the army as a doctor. The war had taken away his right to call himself a doctor, gave him a limp that made him perfectly useless. Took away his life.

But it was given back to him in the form of the most brilliant man in London, most possibly the whole world. Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective. Sherlock had given him his life back, taken away the post trauma disorder that affected his leg and the steadiness of his hand. He had felt perfectly young again, tailing after the detective to solve seemingly impossible crimes.

Watching Sherlock step off the rooftop and fall to his death had a huge effect on the old army doctor. He'd hidden himself away in their flat for a week before Mrs. Hudson could lure him out, and then it was only because the kind lady sounded like she was bordering on the edge of hysterical, not wanting to lose both of the people she saw as sons.

He had stopped blogging altogether. All he did was live, in the simplest meaning of the word. He spent days just staring listlessly out of the window, going shopping, or halfheartedly joining in on conversations people forced on him. He'd slowly gotten better, but the hole left in his heart never got any smaller.

It only seemed to get bigger when he started to notice odd things.

* * *

It all started the December after Sherlock took his last steps off the rooftop and fell to his death. Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade had been desperate to catch a murderer, and after two weeks of victims piling up had begged John to help.

After so long in Sherlock's company, John had picked up a few helpful talents, most the consulting detective himself had encouraged to grow with comments full of praise whenever John deduced something and got even remotely close. John had agreed, despite not wanting to. If he didn't more people could die, and that was the last thing he wanted hanging over his head. He had looked at all the files, all the crime scenes, compiled all the evidence he could. He stayed up late typing out an evidence list on his computer, and around 3 a.m. he had fallen asleep.

When he'd woken up his jacket was placed over him, and two words had been added to his document. Two simple words that solved the entire case.

It was possible that in a state of half sleep he had gone to find a blanket to escape the cold, grabbed his jacket instead, had a stroke of genius and typed the two words, and then plopped right back down and fallen to sleep. And forgotten all of it.

He didn't mention the odd occurrence to anyone, just provided the proof to a grateful Lestrade who arrested the culprit promptly.

* * *

The next time it happened was exactly a month later, while John was visiting Sherlock's grave.

The army doctor had raised his eyes to the cloud covered sky, breath coming out in visible puffs of air as he shoved his mitten covered hands in his pockets. His eyes misted over as he thought about the man beneath him, and he had to swallow a lump in his throat. His phone had buzzed, momently distracting him from his musings. When he pulled it out he had a text from an unknown number.

_Don't cry, soldier._

John had looked around in alarm, but had been unable to see anyone. He was embarrassed that anyone had seen him like that, and had gone to Lestrade to ask the DI to look up the number. Unfortunately, when he went to give the DI the number the text had already been deleted from his phone. He hadn't bothered to write it down.

After that, things began to happen more frequently. Once late at night when John woke up to the tv turned off and the yellow smile looking a bit more yellow than it had been before, he realized he couldn't tell anyone. Sherlock had taught him to make logical assumptions, and the only logical assumption he could come to was that it was Sherlock doing everything. Even if he was dead.

Sherlock had never believed in God. There was an answer to everything for the consulting detective, and there was no deity at work behind it. So the idea of Sherlock as an angel was completely preposterous. No, the man was much better suited as a ghost. An entity so strong that he'd come back for his little army doctor companion to help take care of him.

* * *

If a small thing was needed from the store, like milk, it would be there. If John was working on a case and fell asleep, the clue to it all would be waiting for him when he woke up. Sometimes he'd wake up mysteriously in his bed when he'd fallen asleep in his chair, or covered in a blanket when it was cold. If he misplaced something it would turn up a week later.

John started up a tab on the list of odd happenings, and added on that due to them he seemed to be getting delusional. When it was late at night and his eyes flickered to the left or right for the briefest of moments, he'd swear he could see Sherlock there. He'd blink and take another look, and then there'd be only air.

This went on for two years without the army doctor telling anyone.

"John, are you awake?"

John groaned at the voice, opening his eyes and immediately regretted it as he was nearly blinded by the lights in the room. He would have tossed his arm up as a shield, but it hurt too much to move. The voice belonged to none other than the DI of Scotland Yard himself.

"How are you feeling?"

With consciousness came the memory of what happened. He had been driving to see Harriet, a visit he was forcing himself to make because she had finally gotten back together with Clara and he wanted to wish them well. He'd gotten out later than he meant to, and ended up driving in at one of the busiest time of the day. He'd been stopped at a stop light, and then the next thing he could remember was the screech of tires and a car horn honking, and then-

"John, I…" Greg swallowed, unsure how to go on. "The accident was in broad daylight. The bystanders-well, they-they say that they saw someone pull you out."

John looked at the DI, really looked at him. He could tell he hadn't slept a wink.

"The description given-"

John tuned Lestrade out, suddenly tired. He knew the description that would have been given of his rescuer. A tall, pale man with dark messy hair and ice cold blue eyes, an upturned collar that added a mysterious air. How they had been so busy checking on John that when they turned to get his name he was gone.

"Sherlock." John whispered tiredly, "It was Sherlock."

Lestrade stared at the tired army doctor lying in the hospital bed, thankful his eyes were closed so he didn't see the pained expression on his face. The man had disappeared before he could be questioned, and it drove Lestrade crazy not to know why. But he didn't have the heart to tell John that it had been Sebastian Moran who had saved him.


End file.
